At the end of a season, are you looking back to see what you’ve learned about the show, or are you just constantly looking forward?Well, both, always
At the end of a season, are you looking back to see what you’ve learned about the show, or are you just constantly looking forward?
Well, both, always. I’ve learned so much in this process of making the show. And also, you know, you’re constantly checking yourself like, what have I not not seen that I would like to see going forward with these characters? Stretching this premise that could easily hold one season could take us in places that feel like, “What the hell?” How could all this be going on in reality? We have opened our show up from the very beginning as a slight touch of nonreality, a romantic view both of New York City and its lonely denizens. And it’s true-crime storytelling, so that feels to me like where I always go: What do I want to see the characters do next? And are the characters holding the screen in a way that keeps me compelled and surprised?
As they’re taking Jan away at the end, she says to Charles, “We’re endgame.” How far ahead do you have the show mapped out? Do you know how the show will end?
[Producers] Dan Fogelman, Jess Rosenthal, and I have talked about story ideas and what that might look like. But I’m not that guy. I think I’m in such a rarefied moment with this show because of who’s been involved in it, and how cheerful they all are to be there, and how cheerful I am to be around all of it. Until they tell me I can’t do it, I’ll keep going.
You save one of the best teases for next season for near-last: the introduction of Téa Leoni as a clearly formidable “dame” who wants to hire Charles and company to find her missing crime kingpin father.
I’ve loved every conversation I’ve had with her. I’ve had a couple of texts with her in the last week that are delightful, and lots of thoughts and ideas around her character and where it might go for season five.
Has the show grown in ways you could not imagine when you first started?
Standing on set for episode seven and that majestic brawl between Meryl Streep and Melissa McCarthy amidst that collection of actors—Molly Shannon, Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez, Zach Galifianakis, Eugene Levy, Eva Longoria—all of us just standing there watching those two go at it was just one of those moments where you feel like you are in an Al Hirschfeld drawing.
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